IrregularS
by Sergio Turbo
Summary: What would happen if Madoka made a different wish and failed to change the universe? Homura would keep on fighting, obviously. However, things are different in this timeline. For example, she's the White Devil's cousin...
1. Chapter 1 For Want Of A Nail

_Disclaimer: I do not own Puella Magi Madoka Magica _or _Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. This is only a fanfiction, I'm not getting a single cent from it so please think of it as free publicity and don't sue me._

_Oh, I also promise I'll give back the characters dry-cleaned and in a recognizable shape. Mostly. Well, I've already got my own Protectors of the Plot Continuum Agents (Sergio, Nikki and Corolla. You won't find anything about them here, though) stationed in the fic and ready, so if I mess up they'll handle the cleanup. Oh, I don't own the PPC too, but at least I have an official Permission for that._

_Reviews and especially constructive criticism are welcome.  
_

_**WARNING: This fanfic is trying to mix epic battles, serious themes and silliness. Possibility of crazyness. Read at your own risk.**_

Chapter One - For Want Of A Nail

Killing off Walpurgisnacht alone proved to be even more difficult than Homura expected. That thing shrugged off _anti-ship missiles and tons of C4 plastic explosive_ with barely scratches.  
Homura wasn't so lucky. She had a leg pinned down by debris, was badly injured, and her shield was completely empty. No more weapons, no more sand.  
"Why... Why I can't beat her, no matter how many times I try?"  
She started to turn her shield to go back in time again... but stopped, suddenly realizing how futile would be that.  
"If I repeat this again... Madoka's fate will keep getting worse. Everything I've done..."  
Homura began to cry, her soul gem darkening with her despair. She closed her eyes, waiting for the moment her Soul Gem would start cracking, the moment she would become a Witch.

Then, somebody took her hand.  
"It's okay. It's okay now, Homura-chan."  
Homura opened her eyes.  
"Madoka..."  
What was she doing there? If she stayed at the hall, she would probably have survived even with Walpurgis rampaging through Mitakihara. Unless...  
"Madoka... You didn't?"  
If she had contracted, she was doomed. The _whole world_ was doomed, in fact.  
"Homura-chan... I'm sorry. I will become a Puella Magi."  
"Madoka... That's..."  
Homura had to stop her. If only she wasn't pinned down...  
"I finally understand. I found a wish I want to get fulfilled. So I'll use my life for that."  
Homura had to stop her. This was the last chance left to save Madoka from the cruel destiny of a Puella Magi.  
"Don't... Then I... I..."  
Homura started crying again.  
"Then what for...?"  
Why she wasn't able to talk? She needed every single bit of persuasion she had, and she was stuttering instead.  
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."  
Homura felt Madoka's warm embrace. _It feels great,_ she thought. _If only we were alone at my house...  
_Wait, why was she thinking something like that in such a dire situation?  
"I think I turned out this way because you protected me and looked over me all this time. I'm really sorry."  
Madoka got up, smiling softly.  
"This is the answer I found. Believe in me. I won't let all your work go to waste."  
Homura called out Madoka's name again. What was she up to?  
"_You're shouldering the destinies of countless worlds and you're the focal point of all the fate lines._" Kyubey spoke, "_No matter how impossible your wish is, it could probably be fulfilled._"  
Homura started hoping again. Now Madoka fully knew how the Puella Magi system worked, and she seemed to have grasped her time travels too. Did Madoka figure out how to use the rules in her favor?  
"_Now, Madoka Kaname, what do you wish so much that you'll pay it with your soul?"  
_"I... I wish for entropy to never have existed, so no girl ever had to become a Puella Magi! I want to erase all the sufferance you Incubators caused in this world!"  
Homura widened her eyes. She didn't find a way to bend the rules of the contract... she decided to _destroy t_he whole thing the contract was made for!  
"_Madoka Kaname, are you trying to change the laws of physics? No... If your wish is fulfilled, you'll rewrite history! The universe itself will be rewritten from the very beginning! Did you even _understand _what entropy is?"  
_"I don't know, but this is my wish." Madoka coldly replied. "Grant it, Incubator!"  
A pillar of light emerged from Madoka and shot in the sky, while an huge shockwave swept the area.

Then, it was all over. The city (or, rather, what remained of it) didn't change, Walpurgisnacht was still spinning around in the sky, and Madoka was lying on the ground, motionless.  
Since the shockwave shattered the piece of concrete pinning her down, Homura managed to get up and reach Madoka.  
"Madoka! Answer me!"  
Homura shook her body in desperation, but Madoka didn't move.  
"Madoka! Wake up! Madoka!"  
"_She's dead."  
_"WHAT?"  
Homura grabbed Kyubey by the neck.  
"_Despite all the accumulated karma, she still wasn't powerful enough to make such a change. She put her own life force into it to make up for the difference, but unfortunately that wasn't enough either. What a waste, I would have harvested a lot of energy from her transformation in a Witch, maybe even enough to fulfill this planet's quota."  
_Those words filled Homura with anger. She tightened the grip on the Incubator's neck until she felt it snapping under her fingers.

She couldn't accept to lose Madoka again. Not after that. For once, she had felt like her struggle was finally over. She had felt like she could finally have a normal life, with Madoka as her best friend. She had felt like she could finally marry-  
"_However, her sacrifice led to some chaos in the time-space continuum. It may lead to some interesting changes in history. And I'd want my old body back, thanks. I'm always hungry after a reincarnation."  
_"Choke on it."  
Homura threw the dead Incubator body at Kyubey.  
"_So... What are you going to do now, Homura Akemi? You're going to repeat all of this again?"  
_"Yes. After what she tried to do, I'm not going to give up. I will save her. It doesn't matter if I have to nuke Walpurgis or kill you a million times. It doesn't matter if I am going to die in the process. Madoka. Will. Survive."  
Homura didn't wait for Kyubey's answer. She turned her shield and went back to the past.

Homura woke up in her hospital bed. She already lost count of how many times she lived that scene.  
Then, the door of her room opened. Two girls around her age, an indigo-eyed brunette and a red-eyed blonde, entered.  
Homura didn't recognize them, although the brunette was somehow familiar.  
"How are you feeling today, Homura-chan?"  
Her voice too was familiar, but Homura couldn't remember who she was. The brunette seemed to notice it.  
"Homura-chan? Are you feeling alright? It's me, Nanoha. Your cousin."  
_Nanoha?_ Homura thought, _Wasn't she... wasn't she killed eleven years ago?_

Homura's uncle, Shiro Fuwa, and his family, including the then 3-years-old Nanoha, were wiped out by a bomb placed at a family reunion by terrorists. Akemi Takamachi, who was Momoko's sister, changed Homura's surname to her given name in order to hide her only daughter from them, as they were the only two survivors.  
Akemi Takamachi recently died in a car accident, and since Homura didn't manage to find her natural father yet, she was alone.

But now Nanoha was alive and in front of her eyes. _How is it possible?_ Homura thought.  
Then, she realized it. Kyubey talked about Madoka's botched wish having side-effects on history. Somehow, Madoka's self-sacrifice ended up saving her family.  
Or was it intentional? Did Madoka, realizing that she wasn't able to save the whole universe, decided to use the power she built up to save at least Homura's family?

"Homura-chan? Hello?"  
Nanoha waved her hand in front of Homura's eyes.  
"I'm sorry, Nanoha. I just woke up and I still feel dizzy. Otherwise, I am fine."  
"Don't worry. Oh, let me introduce my best friend, Fate. When I told her about your operation, she was worried about you despite the fact that you never met."  
Fate bowed.  
"I'm Fate Testarossa-Harlaown. I'm pleased to meet you, and happy to see that you feel well."  
"You worry too much, Fate-chan."

Before introducing herself too, Homura quickly glanced at her school admission papers. If Nanoha was alive, probably the attack never happened and so her surname would probably be Takamachi.  
She was quite surprised to see that her name was still Homura Akemi instead. But there was indeed a difference on the papers.  
The papers read "Uminari City Middle School" instead of "Mitakihara City Middle School".  
While introducing herself, Homura thought about it. If she was going to study at different school from Madoka, she would have trouble finding a way to talk to her without scaring her too much. In the last timeline, she was already enough of a stranger to her only friend. Besides, Homura never heard of Uminari City before. She had to investigate that.  
"Nanoha, can I ask you something?"  
Nanoha nodded, with a jolt showing that she was eager to help her cousin.  
"Why I chose to go to school in Uminari instead of here in Mitakihara?"

As an answer, she got weird looks from both of the girls.  
"Mitakihara? Nanoha, aren't we still in Uminari?"  
"Yes. What are you talking about, Homura-chan? Mitakihara changed name in the 1800s. For us, it has always been Uminari. You're acting quite strange, maybe you've got a fever."  
Nanoha sat next to Homura and put an hand on her forehead.  
"Sorry. I had a rather weird dream, I'm still confused." Homura hoped that it was enough of an excuse. It worked.  
"Don't worry, Homura-chan! Rest and recover, otherwise Mom will start to worry. Speaking of her, she gave us a cake, since you couldn't be at my birthday party yesterday. I'm very sorry for coming here only today."  
Nanoha bowed.  
"Don't worry, it's fine."  
Nanoha opened the box containing the cake. It wasn't very big, but it looked tasty. It reminded Homura of Mami's cakes, and her stomach started growling. Nanoha smiled, while Homura looked down in embarrassment. Apparently, her stomach missed the "cool and cold" order from her brain.  
"Are you hungry, Homura-chan?"  
Fate interrupted her.  
"Isn't it against the rules, Nanoha?"  
"Fate-chan, you know that we don't have to worry about that!"

Admiral Lindy Harlaown was sitting on the bridge of the Asura when she suddenly sneezed.  
"Why I have the feeling that I'll have to cover up something for Nanoha again?"

After eating the cake and chatting a bit, Nanoha and Fate were on the way home from the hospital.  
"She was quite different from what you told me." Fate admitted. Nanoha nodded in agreement.  
"I think she didn't recover completely from Aunt Akemi's death. I want to help her, but I don't know how." Nanoha sighed. "I'm still a clumsy girl, aren't I?"  
"Even if you are, you're my cute and clumsy best friend."  
_Actually, I'd like to be more than your best friend,_ Fate added in her thoughts.  
"Fate-chan, don't tease me like that!"

Homura later learned that, instead of living alone in her flat, in this timeline she was going to stay at Nanoha's house. While she didn't mind that - in fact, all of the few memories of her family she had were happy - she probably would have troubles sneaking out to hunt Witches and stalk... er, _protect_ Madoka.  
She stopped thinking about that only when, that evening, she entered her new home. Mostly because she nearly fainted due to Aunt Momoko's excessively strong hug.

"Momoko, let her breath. She's still convalescent." Shiro warned.  
"I was so worried about her! First Akemi's death, then her heart disease... She must be feeling awful!"  
Miyuki frowned.  
"Mom, she isn't going to feel any better if you smother her."  
"Sorry for that, Homura-chan" Nanoha whispered into Homura's ear when she was finally free, "She's in maternal overdrive since Kyouya went abroad with Shinobu."  
"I don't mind."  
For the first time in months, Homura smiled. She was glad for being again with people that knew and loved her, after being completely alone for so long. Once again, she was in debt with Madoka.  
_I promise. I'm not going to fail again. This time I will save you, Madoka._

After dinner, Nanoha went towards the door.  
"I'm going out with Fate-chan. Sorry for not staying with you, Homura-chan, but we have a commitment to do. I'd bring you too with us, but I don't want you to overexert yourself."  
"Take care, Nanoha. Don't be too late." Momoko advised.  
Later, Homura took a bath in order to relieve all the stress she built up in the previous timeline. While she didn't mind Miyuki being with her ("Mom's going to burst in every ten seconds to make sure you aren't drowning otherwise"), she would have preferred if Nanoha's sister stopped commenting on how silky and beautiful was her hair. Seriously, they asked what shampoo she used enough times already.

[Wide Area Search completed. No barriers have been found within the city.]  
"Thank you, Raising Heart."  
Nanoha and Fate, wearing their Barrier Jackets, were standing on the top of a skyscraper.  
"Seems that tonight there isn't even a single one of those monsters around."  
"Good. It means that I will be able to be with Homura-chan during her first evening home. Still, I wonder what those things are."  
Nanoha and Fate weren't home only to complete their studies: the Time-Space Administration Bureau recently discovered on Earth the existence of a type of creature preying on humans with the help of dimensional barriers, and the two mages were investigating them.  
Unfortunately, the monsters disappeared once killed and there was no way to take them down non-lethally, so research on them was slow. The little objects that the bigger ones left behind, dubbed "Dark Seeds" by TSAB scientists, were the only thing that could be analyzed in a laboratory, so Nanoha and Fate's current assignment was to gather as many of them as possible.  
"Your idea of climbing up here was great, Fate-chan. Raising Heart's search range nearly doubled."  
Fate glanced at her, her ominous cape fluttering ominously in the ominous wind. Wait, ominously? She was on Team Good Guys already.  
"I actually did it because I thought it made us look cool." _And to be alone with you.  
_"You're weird, Fate-chan."

_Where am I?  
_Homura was walking in the darkness. She didn't remember how she got there, and she could barely see two steps ahead of herself.  
"Homura-chan..."  
Homura could recognize that voice between a thousands other. It was Madoka's.  
"Homura-chan... Help me... It's cold..."  
Homura followed the voice. If Madoka was in danger, she had to save her at all costs. After a while, the darkness faded a little bit, enough to make Homura see Madoka a few meters in front of her, lying on the ground, covered with blood. Very likely her own.  
"MADOKA!"  
What had happened? Why Madoka was so badly injured? What or who had attacked her? Why she had those sad, dull eyes?  
"Homura-chan... Are you here...? I can't see..."  
Homura ran towards Madoka. She wasn't going to let her die. But at every step she made the distance between them increased instead, while creepy laughs started to resound.

Before she could even realize it, Homura was fighting three witches simultaneously. One was Oktavia, Sayaka's Witch form. Homura had never seen the others before, but somehow she _knew_ that they were Mami and Kyoko's.  
And she also knew that she was _screwed_. In every timeline she met her, Oktavia put one hell of a fight, and Candeloro and Ophelia looked just as strong. Homura couldn't focus on taking down one of them without exposing herself to the others, especially since she hadn't restocked her supply of weapons yet. She had just her laser-like energy attack, but wasn't able to use it properly as she never practiced with it very much.

Even using her time-stop power, it didn't take long before she was defeated. Despite the fact that she was immobile on the ground, however, the three witches didn't try to finish her off.  
_What? I'm here, a perfect target_, she thought._ Why aren't they putting me out my misery?  
_When she looked up again, though, they had disappeared. Instead, she saw Walpurgisnacht towering over her friend. The witch's laughter mixed with Madoka's blood-curling scream.  
"No, no, NOOO!"

Homura jolted awake, panting heavily. She was in Nanoha's room, and there were obviously no Witches around. But what she had just seen, despite being not real, was enough to make her cry.  
"What's the matter, Homura-chan?"  
"I... I had a nightmare. Don't... don't worry."  
Homura tried to recompose her usual cold mask, but failed.  
"It's okay. It's okay now, Homura-chan. It was just a bad dream."  
Homura wiped her tears and looked at Nanoha's smiling face. Those were the exact words Madoka said. In fact, Nanoha was a lot like the pink-haired girl. A bit too much, perhaps.  
Homura started to worry. Did Nanoha take the place of Madoka in this timeline?  
"Homura-chan, do you want to tell me what did you see in your dream? You might feel better afterwards."  
"I... There was this girl, Madoka... She was dying... I couldn't save her..." Homura started crying again.  
"Don't cry, Homura-chan. You make me feel sad too."  
Nanoha embraced her cousin. To Homura, it felt very much like Madoka's embrace. After a little while, Nanoha talked again.  
"Did you say that the girl of your dream was named Madoka?"  
Homura nodded.  
"Did she have pink hair?"  
Homura nodded again.  
"Weird. She's like of one of our classmates. Madoka Kaname, she's our health representative."  
Homura withheld a sigh of relief while Nanoha went back to her bed.  
"Homura-chan, what about sleeping together like we did when we were little?"  
Homura was quite surprised by the offer. However, she had different memories from the Homura Nanoha knew. In fact, it was entirely possible that Nanoha acted like a bigger sister to her all the time, despite being a month younger.

"Good morning, Mrs. Takamachi."  
Momoko leaned from the kitchen door.  
"Hello, Fate. I'm sorry, but Nanoha is still sleeping. Would you mind to go upstairs and wake her up? You'll be late for school otherwise."  
"Not at all."  
Fate entered Nanoha's room. Homura's bed was empty, but there was a familiar curled-up shape under the blankets of Nanoha's one.  
With a grin, Fate started tickling it... and found herself facing Homura's less than amused stare.  
The blonde girl recoiled back from the shock.  
"What...What are you doing in MY WIFE'S BED?"  
"I can assure you that we didn't do anything inconvenient. She's my cousin, after all."  
Nanoha stirred and opened her eyes.  
"Oh, hi Fate-chan. Homura-chan had a nightmare tonight, so I thought that sleeping together would calm her down."  
Nanoha embraced Homura again and started patting her head. Fate sweatdropped.  
"Nanoha... You know that you cousin isn't a pet, right?"


	2. Chapter 2 Thirty Xanatos Pileup Mk2

**I promised to myself that I wouldn't write Author Notes.**

**However, I have a good reason to do that now. First of all, there's some people who I want to thank.  
**

**Karrin Blue aka Firemagic, for the constant betaing, suggestion and listening-to-my-crazy-ideas work.  
**

**Gamer, drinker and Atreidestrooper, for their constructive criticism. This chapter has been revised according to it. In fact, what I want to talk about is related to that.  
**

**Beng told that your story is flawed _sucks._ You feel bad, especially if you put a lot of effort into it. But guess what? Those are the reviews who actually help you to improve. If nobody tells you your mistakes, you will never be able to correct them.  
**

**So, if you are a fanfic author and receive constructive criticism, _listen to it. _If you are a reviewer and spot a mistake, _tell it in the review._  
**

**We may be amateur writers, but this doesn't mean that we are allowed to be sloppy writers.  
**

**And now, a little bit of bragging. Looks like I've managed to end up on the TvTropes Fanfic Recs for the Puella Magi Madoka Magica series. This means I have to do my best to be worth of it.  
**

Chapter 2 - Thirty Xanatos Pileup

In the following days, Homura started hunting witches again. She noticed that there were a lot less witches than in the previous timelines, but she didn't think about it much. Maybe that was another effect of Madoka's wish, and it also meant that she had to steal less weapons from JSDF and US Army bases.

The evening before she was to resume school, Homura entered yet another barrier. Inside, the city landscape quickly turned into a creepy forest made entirely of gray, dead trees and hideous looking rocks. Several familiars, shaped like the skeletons of a werewolf-like creature and armed with axes, noticed her and attacked.  
She pulled out a FN Minimi machine gun from her shield and wiped out the first wave with ease.  
The second and the third didn't last longer.  
_I've killed all of you before. And I'm going to do it again, until Madoka will be finally safe._  
Homura kept advancing towards the barrier's center, using her magic to sustain the recoil and rate of fire of her gun and using the rocks as elevated shooting positions.  
In the middle of the fourth wave, Homura had emptied the Minimi's magazine. The familiars took advantage of the interruption and closed in... only to find out that Homura disappeared, leaving several primed M26 grenades behind. The ones who survived the blast were finished off by controlled bursts from Homura's Howa Type 89 assault rifle.  
The witch was waiting at the center of the barrier, inside a clearing. The Puella Magi went towards it, and was greeted by even more familiars. She started shooting again, but the slower rate of fire and smaller magazine of her assault rifle weren't effective enough to her tastes. Homura dodged their attacks, and was going to turn her shield to stop time, reload the machine gun and drop some more explosives when she heard two artificial voices speaking what sounded like English.  
[Axel Shooter.]  
[Plasma Lancer.]  
Orbs of pink energy and arrows of yellow energy wiped out nearly all the remaining familiars. Homura instinctively reloaded her assault rifle and finished off the ones still standing.  
"Are you OK?" a voice from behind her said. A familiar one. Homura turned around... and was surprised to see who had helped her out.  
"Nanoha? Fate?"  
"Homura...chan?  
Homura sighed.  
"Don't tell me... you are Puella Magi too?"  
Nanoha and Fate glanced at each other.  
"Puella magi? We are mages."  
"Mages?"  
Homura was even more surprised. They didn't seem to have contracted with Kyubey, and in fact their staffs didn't match usual Puella Magi weapons. Mami's muskets and Kyoko's spears never talked, after all.  
"We work for the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Fate is an Enforcer, and I am a First Lieutenant."  
Homura never heard of the TSAB before, but the name made her realize that they were indeed something different from a Puella Magi. And potential allies, too.  
"Homura-chan, what is a puella magi?"  
As a response, Homura flicked her hair.  
"I am one, but I'll explain that later. Let's deal with the Witch first."

The Witch was shaped like a giant, gray tree planted in the ground upside-down, with a ragged red cape tied around the trunk. She attacked swinging her tentacle-like roots around like... well, _tentacles_, but luckily the three girls had no problems dodging them by either flying or time-stop jumping and returned fire.  
The Witch screamed in pain under the wall of Axel Shooters, Plasma Lancers and plain old bullets that hit her, but managed to soak up a good part of the damage using the tentacles as improvised shields.  
"We should get rid of the roots first!" screamed Nanoha while flying out of the Witch's attack range.  
"I'll deal with them. Bardiche, Haken Form!"  
[Yes sir.]  
Bardiche's head rotated, and an energy blade formed under it.  
"Haken Saber!" Fate also added "_I'm not going to let you use your naughty tentacles on Nanoha, monster!_" in her thoughts.  
The blonde girl swung Bardiche, launching the blade in a boomerang-like fashion. It cut through a lot of the roots, leaving an opening to the Witch's main body.  
"Nanoha, Homura, now!"  
"Yes! Raising Heart, Buster mode!"  
[All right.]  
While Raising Heart transformed, Homura took a RPG-7 rocket launcher from her shield and aimed it at the Witch.  
"Divine..."  
Homura fired the RPG-7, the rocket-propelled grenade hitting the trunk and nearly killing off the Witch.  
"BUSTER!"  
Homura stared in awe at the beam of pink energy that Nanoha shot, vaporizing the Witch completely. She had never seen such an attack. It wasn't like her little purple beam, it was thick enough to completely engulf a person and lasted much longer. It was like somebody amped up the strength of one of Madoka's bolts to Tiro Finale-level power, maybe even a bit more.  
_I must ask Nanoha to teach me that_, she thought.  
While the barrier disappeared, Nanoha and Fate landed.  
"Geez, I miss using cartridges."  
"Don't even think about it, Nanoha. Shamal will kill us both if you break your cartridge ban."  
"But it will be over next month! What would be the difference?"  
Homura didn't understand what they were talking about. Probably something related to their powers, but... cartridges? They weren't wielding guns, although Nanoha's staff had what looked oddly like a STANAG assault rifle clip.  
"Nanoha, I think we should go home and clarify things with Homura now."  
"You're right, Fate-chan." Nanoha agreed, "Do you mind if we go to your house, though? Mom's going to have an heart attack if she discovers that Homura-chan is a magical girl too."  
"Not at all. Let's go."  
The three girls untransformed and started walking towards Fate's house. Homura was the first to start talking.  
"So... What is this Bureau you were talking about?"  
"It's the Time-Space Administration Bureau." Nanoha explained, "It's... uhm, how can I explain it? A multidimensional police? An interplanetary peacekeeping army?"  
"You said... Interplanetary?"  
"Yes. It is based on the planet Mid-Childa. Fate's from there, actually."  
Homura stared at the blonde girl like she was an alien. Well, she technically was...  
"... Something wrong, Homura? You're creeping me out."  
"Nothing. It's just that the other alien I know isn't exactly trustworthy."  
Homura turned away his stare from Fate, and kept walking.  
"So... The TSAB is keeping an eye on several planets?"  
"Yes," Nanoha confirmed, "A whole lot of them. For example, Earth is Unadministered Planet number 97."  
"Interesting." The Puella Magi was already thinking about her possibilities. The TSAB was probably an organization big enough to be actually capable of handling Walpurgisnacht, if not even stopping the Incubators completely if their magic system was good enough.  
"What about mages?" Homura asked, "How does your magic work? It seems to be completely different than mine."  
"Well, there are several different styles of magic, but all rely on the practicant's Linker Core to link together mana and form spells." Fate explained, "But I guess you know that already, right?"  
"Actually, no." Homura answered, "I'm afraid my magic comes from an entirely different source. Go on."  
"Our spells can have different forms, simple proiectiles, beams, binds, even healing and database, basically anything as long as the proper calculations are done and the caster's Linker Core can provide enough mana. The Linker Core is an organ present in the human body, and even in some other species, although not everyone has it. For example, here on Earth, it's fairly rare."  
"Interesting. But does that mean that you have to do those calculations every time you have to cast a spell?" Homura was rather disappointed by that, as it was clearly a limitation.  
"That's what our Devices are for." Fate answered, "They are highly advanced computers that can record the data about our spells and reproduce the calculations during battle. There are several kinds of them, with varying degrees of self-awareness."  
The two mages showed their Devices to Homura. Raising Heart's current form was a translucent magenta marble, while Bardiche's was a small triangle of golden metal.  
"This is Bardiche, and Nanoha's one is called Raising Heart. Both of them are of the most advanced category, Intelligent Devices. As the name says, they have a fully sentient AI, making them much more than tools: they're friends and partners in battle, and in fact a perfect tuning is necessary to make the Mage's brain and device work together in perfect harmony. As you have seen during the previous battle, a Device can have different forms, each suited for a different kind of spells."  
"I see. Speaking about that, I saw what looked like an assault rifle clip on Raging Heart-"  
"Her name is Raising Heart." Nanoha corrected her.  
"Sorry. I was saying, you two were speaking about cartridges earlier. Do Devices work as guns too?"  
"Actually, not." Nanoha explained, "While cartridges do look like blank rifle rounds and are cycled in our Devices in the same way, they actually contain compressed mana. They can give a power boost to the spells, although they also put more strain on the user and his Device."  
"That's one of the reasons why you are currently banned from using cartridges, Nanoha." Fate sighed, " You use too many of them. Two cartridges for a single Divine Buster are way too much, let alone _six_."  
"I learned my lesson, Fate-chan!"  
Homura stared in shock at her cousin. Her Divine Buster was already a powerful attack without using cartridges. What was Nanoha's true power?

"So..." Homura recapped, sitting on the couch in Fate's house, "This TSAB is a sort of interdimensional magical police force?"  
"Yes." Nanoha answered, "We go mostly after magic-using criminals, but we deal with magical monsters too. Speaking of which, you called the one we fought together a 'witch'. What are they?"  
Homura sighed. It was her turn to explain things.  
"May I use your computer, Fate?"  
"Sure."  
Homura pulled out a USB pen drive and connected it to Fate's computer. Luckily, Fate had it modified to accept Earth's media devices too, as Universal Serial Bus isn't an _universally_ universal standard.  
"As you can guess, my magic is very different than yours. Puella Magi gain their powers by contracting with Kyubey."  
An image of a cat-rabbit like animal appeared on the holographic screen.  
"When we contract, we get to have a wish fulfilled, and our magic abilities depend on the nature of the wish. We also get this:"  
Homura removed her ring from her hand. It turned into a purple, egg-shaped gem in a golden casing.  
"This is my Soul Gem. Its brightness shows how much magic I've got left. The only way to recharge it is to use one of the Grief Seeds that Witches leave behind when they die."  
Homura put the Grief Seed from the previous battle near her Soul Gem. The Grief Seed absorbed what looked like a black mist, leaving the Soul Gem brighter. Homura put several images of Witches on the screen.  
"Witches are our enemies. They feed on human despair, and can cause weak people to become either suicidal or homicidal. For every human they cause to die, Witches can make new Familiars, like the ones we fought before the Witch. Familiars can hunt humans on their own too, and when they have killed five people, they turn in a copy of the Witch that spawned them."  
"They're... horrible." Nanoha commented. "But at least you Puella Magi fight them, right?"  
"Yes... but it isn't as heroic as it sounds. As Grief Seeds are a limited resource, Puella Magi tend to be very territorial, and some even avoid fighting Familiars at all. This is because a Puella Magi with a fully-tainted Soul Gem is _finished_. Literally."  
Nanoha and Fate stared in shock. Homura sighed.  
"And I'm not even at the worst part. First of all, our Soul Gem _is_ our soul. It is ripped out of our bodies to give us inhuman strength and endurance, but if it breaks or is more than one hundred feet apart from our bodies... we keel over dead. And that's if we are lucky. If a Soul Gem becomes tainted beyond repair, not only does the Puella Magi die, but she becomes a Witch. There is no way back, and despair and other negative emotions speed up the process exponentially. Obviously, Kyubey... or Incubator, doesn't tell us this before."  
Nanoha and Fate were utterly terrified by the truth about Homura's magic system.  
"But... but what is the point in all of this?"  
Homura glanced back at her cousin.  
"Entropy."  
Nanoha and Fate exchanged a confused look. Thanks to TSAB lessons on dimensional physics, they had a faint idea about what entropy was. But what was the correlation to doomed Magical Girls?  
"The transformation in a Witch creates an enormous amount of energy in the form of despair, which Incubators harvest from the Grief Seeds and use to prolong the life of the universe. The amount of energy is directly related to the strength of the Puella Magi's emotions, and that's why Puella Magi are also Magical Girls. Prepubescent human girls like you just happen to have the strongest emotions among all human beings."  
"Like... _us_?" Fate asked.  
"Fate, I'm not human anymore. What you think is me, is only an empty husk. And my true body is doomed to give birth to an abomination. Unless I get killed first, obviously."  
"No." Fate walked right in front of the Puella Magi, with determination burning in her eyes.  
"Look at me, Homura. I wasn't born as a normal human. I was cloned from a dead girl by her mother. I am what on Mid-Childa is called an Artificial Mage. But people still treat me as a normal human, because I have a soul. It doesn't matter if it is in an artificial body or a little jewel: as long as you have it, you're human!"  
Nanoha too walked to Homura, and put an hand on her folded arms.  
"And even if you aren't human, we aren't going to care about that! You're my cousin, remember?"  
Homura sighed.  
"Truth to be told, Nanoha, I don't think I am the Homura you knew."  
"Well, you seem to have been changed a lot since the last time I saw you, Homura-chan." Nanoha admitted. "Were you already a Puella Magi then?"  
"No, I wasn't. In fact, the day I contracted on is going to be in a month."  
"What?"  
"Nanoha, my wish was to go back in time to be able to protect a dear friend of mine. My magic power is time manipulation. I've been through several timelines, because I... I... I kept failing."  
Homura told the two mages about her quest to save Madoka. Short clips of her struggle appeared on the screen in a way that could be explained only with "magic".  
"So, I will keep repeating this time loop until I find a way to save Madoka, since she kept saving me and others. Will you help me?"  
"Of course!" Nanoha answered, "Didn't we help you already in the previous... er... loops, Homura-chan?"  
"You couldn't." Homura sighed. "Nanoha, in all the other timelines you died when you were only three years old. This is why I am not the Homura you knew until few days ago. I don't have memories of the past that you experienced instead."  
Nanoha was shocked, but managed to still bring out a smile.  
"Well... This explains why Witches went unnoticed by the TSAB in the other timelines. If it wasn't for me and Hayate-chan, Earth wouldn't be of much interest for the TSAB at all. But still, why I am alive only in this one?"  
"In the last timeline, as I already said, Madoka failed to change the laws of the universe. But I have reasons to believe she used the energy she had to save our family. Madoka's just like that."  
Fate nodded in agreement.  
"I can believe it. She's one of our classmates, and while we aren't close friends, I can say for sure she's a really kind girl."  
"So..." Nanoha added thoughtfully, "I am in debt with Madoka too. Well, that means just one thing."  
Nanoha shifted in a more determined stance.  
"We are going to stop Kyubey before he makes a contract with Madoka, and then take Walpurgisnacht down, full power!"  
Homura took that stance too.  
"Yes. This time, we are going to give them hell."  
Fate instinctively stepped back. _Great, now we have two destruction-happy Takamachis_, she thought, _Mom will freak out at this._

Admiral Lindy Harlaown was drinking her usual green tea with sugar and milk when she suddenly shivered. _Why do I have this bad feeling?_  
Simultaneously, Nanoha felt like an atrocity against Japanese customs had been perpetrated, and also a compelling need to prepare green tea the proper way.

"So... You would do anything to save Madoka, right?" Fate asked to Homura while Nanoha was in the kitchen.  
"Yes. I made her a promise, and I am not going to break it." Homura answered, her coolness at full strength, "Saving her is my only goal right now. Nothing else matters."  
"I see... She's more than a friend for you, right?"  
Homura stared at the blonde girl, her coolness quickly becoming a blush. How did she?...  
"Don't worry, I don't mean anything bad. In fact, I feel the same way towards Nanoha. In a way, she saved my life."  
Homura glanced at Fate.  
"Five years ago Precia Testarossa, my mother, gave me the task of recovering twenty-one artifacts of great power, called Jewel Seeds. A TSAB ship had an accident, and they had fallen on Earth. Unbeknownst to me, she was hoping to use their power to reach the lost world to Al-Hazard and so find a way to revive her natural daughter, Alicia. I was, in fact, a failed attempt at reviving her by cloning."  
Fate sighed. It was clear that she didn't say all, and these were obviously very painful things.  
"I didn't know that either. While searching them, I met Nanoha. She was helping Yuuno Scrya, the young archaeologist who discovered the Jewel Seeds, to recover them. She wanted to know why I was after them, and even wanted to become friends with me."  
Fate sighed again.  
"I didn't listen to her. My only goal was bring the Jewel Seeds to my mother. I hoped that after that, she would become again the kind mother I remembered. She... wasn't being very nice to me, you see?"  
Homura noticed the sad expression on Fate's face, and put an hand on her shoulder. The blonde mage clearly had more than her fair share of suffering, just like the black-haired Puella Magi.  
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."  
"No, I want to. It's just fair, considering what you just told us. Anyways, I kept obeying her and ended up clashing against Nanoha several times. After all the Jewel Seeds were recovered, we had a final all-out battle."  
Fate smiled softly.  
"You can guess who won. In fact, I was barely able to stand after the battle. But my trial wasn't over. The TSAB ordered my mother to surrender, but she didn't. She gave no thought to the fact that they had captured me, she even admitted that I was just a tool. I think I fainted just after that. My whole world had shattered. When I woke up, I discovered that she was trying to open a path to Al-Hazard despite the fact that she didn't have enough Jewel Seeds, causing a dimensional quake. Nanoha, despite being still tired from the battle, headed out with the TSAB officers to stop her. I felt useless. Then, Bardiche spoke."  
"What did he say?" Homura asked.  
" 'Get set.' The confirmation message he says when I ask him to set up the Barrier Jacket and his weapon form. He was heavily damaged from the battle, and still he didn't want me to give up. It's only then that I realized something important: Nanoha had fought to protect people since the very beginning. In fact, she even realized that I was sad, and she had decided to defeat me just to be able to talk to me and eventually help me. It was my turn to help her out."  
Fate sighed for the third time.  
"We managed to stop the dimensional quake, but we weren't able to convince my mother to give up on her foolish plan. Even when the Garden of Time, the asteroid where we lived, crumbled into pieces, she refused to surrender."  
It was clear what was Precia's ultimate fate. The two girls remained in silence for a little while.  
"Since then, Nanoha and I have been through a lot of battles together. She is my best friend, and the most important person in my life."  
Fate managed to bring out a smile.  
"So..." Fate resumed, "Should we help out each other towards our true goals?"  
Homura smiled, and the two girls shook hands.  
Nanoha and Madoka shivered simultaneously. None of them managed to figure out why.

The following morning Kazuko Saotome, Nanoha's teacher, wasn't in a happy mood.  
"I have something important to discuss with all of you today. Make sure you pay attention. Should a sunny-side up be hard or soft?! What do you think, Nakazawa?!"  
Several students sweatdropped while the poor Nakazawa tried to answer the teacher.  
Sayaka turned her head towards Madoka.  
"She probably just got rejected again."  
"Yes, it must be that."  
At the other side of the classroom, Fate sighed.  
"She's at it again."  
"It's hard to believe that last week she went on for an hour saying that that guy was going to be the perfect husband." Nanoha added.  
The teacher took a deep breath, and went to the next announcement with a smile.  
"Okay. Now I have a transfer student to introduce to everybody. Please come in, Miss Akemi."  
Homura entered the classroom. Several students, both males and females, were stunned by her looks.  
"Whoa, she's hot!" Sayaka commented.  
"She walked in just like a grown up woman." Fate noted.  
"And to think she was such a cute and clumsy girl until some months ago..." Nanoha added.  
Madoka, instead, couldn't do anything but stare at the new student. Homura looked just like the girl she saw in a dream that night. Then, she realized that Homura was staring her back.  
"Akemi is also Takamachi's cousin, so please treat her well."  
Saotome sweatdropped, while the rest of the class shuddered. Everybody still remembered what happened when a boy started picking on Fate for her shy behaviour.  
After lunch, he was found in the infirmary, in confusional state and muttering something about pink lights. While there was no evidence against Nanoha (or anything that could explain what happened), she had an unusual grin that day.  
Homura sat next to Nanoha.  
"Sunny-side up eggs again?"  
"Er... Yes."  
Homura sighed.  
"I quite hoped that Madoka had changed that too..."  
"Speaking of her, do you know why she's so nervous after seeing you?"  
With a quick nod of her head, Nanoha pointed at Madoka. The pink-haired girl kept turning her head around... mostly towards the Puella Magi.  
"Last time, she was under the impression she already saw me somewhere. It may be an effect of my time travels, but don't ask me how it works."

During the following break, Homura was overwhelmed with her classmates' questions. Mainly about her hair. _Again_.  
"I'm starting to get jealous," Nanoha commented to Fate, "I want to have silky hair like you and Homura-chan!"  
Somehow, Homura heard that and shot her a "not you too" glance.

"I'm sorry, girls, but our teacher said Akemi has to take some medicine during the breaks."  
Madoka, despite being quite uneasy around the new student, went on with her duty as health representative. Homura got up from her desk without saying a word.  
"Madoka, do you mind if I come too?" Nanoha asked.  
"Of course not. You're her cousin, right?"  
The three girls exited the classroom.

"Er... The infirmary is..."  
Before Madoka could finish the sentence, Homura already went in the right direction.  
"You.. already know where it is?"  
Homura didn't answer, and kept walking.  
"Er... Akemi?"  
"Just call me Homura."  
"Homura...chan?"  
Madoka's insecurity about calling Homura by first name was like a stab through the Puella Magi's heart. Once again, all time spent with Madoka and their friendship never happened.  
"What is it?"  
"Er... nothing, really. I just think you have a cool name."  
Homura suppressed a scream. Those words hurt even more for every single time Madoka said them. The Puella Magi turned around, and faced her.  
"Madoka Kaname, do you think that your family, your friends, and your own life are precious?"  
Madoka was quite put off by the question.  
"I... I do?"  
"Really?"  
Nanoha followed the exchange in silence. What was her cousin trying to achieve? Madoka was obviously scared by those questions.  
"Why... Why would I lie on such a thing?"  
"I see. Your family and friends think you're important too. So, don't do anything stupid. Don't become anybody else. Don't... sacrifice yourself."  
"Sacrifice... myself?"  
Nanoha corrected her previous thought. _Madoka's not scared by Homura-chan... She's terrified by her! What is she doing?_  
"All you need to do is to be Madoka Kaname, and nothing else."  
Homura resumed walking, leaving Nanoha and Madoka behind.  
"I'm sorry, Madoka. Homura-chan had quite a bad time and..."  
Nanoha didn't manage to find a way to excuse her cousin's behaviour.  
"I... I'll go with her, OK? You can go back to the classroom."  
Nanoha ran after Homura.

"Just what were you doing?"  
Homura was quite surprised to see Nanoha angry at her.  
"I warned her."  
"'Warned her', you say? I think 'terrified her' fits more. Do you think she's going to listen to the ominous warnings of the strange new student? Wasn't she supposed to have been your only friend, too?"  
"Says the one who makes friends by blasting them."  
"What?... How did you...?"  
Homura flicked her hair.  
"Fate told me."  
"But... But it was only because she didn't want to listen!"  
Homura answered with a glance.  
"Do you mean... she wouldn't listen too?"  
Homura let herself fall on a nearby bench.  
"Exactly. The truth about the contract is hard to believe, and Madoka would make one even for little things like saving a cat's life. In fact, in the first timeline she did exactly that. And in the last two, she did it despite knowing what would happen to her afterwards."  
Nanoha sat next to her cousin, all the anger gone.  
"And so, you are trying to scare her away from the contract?"  
Homura sighed.  
"It's the way that worked best so far. If I have to be a complete stranger to Madoka in order to save her, I'll do just that."  
Nanoha shook her head and clenched her fists.  
"There's no need for that! This time, you aren't alone! We can save her without using such methods, we just have to work together!"  
Homura couldn't find an answer.  
"So... Let's plan a strategy _together_, Homura-chan, shall we?"  
Homura nodded. For once, she could let somebody else take the lead. Besides, she didn't want to see her cousin angry again.  
Especially since being on the wrong side of a Divine Buster seemed a _painful_ thing.


	3. Chapter 3 Why Won't You Die?

**Sorry for the delay, but I had a Real Life issue known as "exams", and the corrections on Chapter 2 took time too.**** As usual, if you think I messed up something, tell me and I'll fix it. Or at least I'll give an explanation for it.  
**

**While working on the story's timeline I discovered that Nanoha's birthday is exactly the day before IrregularS begins, so I'm going to make some adjustments on Chapter 1. I think a quick re-reading of the two previous chapters would be good. From now on, I'll give warning if I change something on past chapters, in order to let everyone catch up.  
**

**(Yeah, I write this thing with Nanoha Wiki, Madoka Wiki and TvTropes tabs open, sometimes even Wikipedia too. You have to do your research.)  
**

Chapter Three - Why Won't You Die?

"Let's start our strategy meeting!"

It was lunchtime, and Nanoha had managed to claim a bench on the rooftop of the school for her, Fate and Homura.  
The latter was enthusiastically eating from her bento box. In the last timelines, she ate mainly from the school's cafeteria, and often skipped both breakfast and dinner as she didn't have the time to cook. If it wasn't for her magic keeping her up and fighting, her body would have failed long before that day.

Actually, she seldom ate properly after her mother's death. In the earlier timelines she was a _disaster_ in cooking. Luckily, knowing that she lived alone, Madoka often brought an extra bento for her at school, plus Junko invited her over for dinner every other day.  
The black haired Puella Magi got lost in her memories. Very often, Madoka had her stay over for the night, not to mention the times they had a bath together. Being a bespectacled, cute and clumsy girl had its bright sides after all. Maybe Nanoha was right, being friendly again to Madoka could be a good idea...

"Homura-chan? Are you listening?"  
Homura woke up from her daydreaming. Luckily for her and Fate's "mission", Nanoha thought that her mother's excellent cooking was at fault for her cousin's drooling and dream-like status.  
_Get a grip on yourself, Homura. You aren't going to save Madoka if you keep daydreaming about her.  
_"Sorry, I spaced out. What did you say?"  
"I was asking you exactly how many Puella Magi are there in this city."  
Homura thought about it a little while.  
"At this point there is only one Puella Magi besides me in Uminari - Mami Tomoe. She is in class 9-2. Although, there is a chance that Kyoko Sakura, from Kasamino Town, might come here too."  
Homura noticed the weird looks she was getting from both of the other two girls.  
"Don't tell me Kasamino City changed its name too?"  
Nanoha and Fate exchanged a look.  
"Actually, the name change from Mitakihara to Uminari happened shortly after Mitakihara annexed Kasamino as a way to help the reconstruction after an earthquake." Nanoha explained, "Wasn't it the same in the other timelines too?"  
"No, it wasn't." Homura answered. "But it feels like something Madoka may have done while trying to change the universe. Anyways, Mami is the most experienced of the Puella Magi, not to mention the one who tutors Madoka after Kyubey contacts her. She's very fond of her juniors and takes her role as a senior Magical Girl seriously. She has been a good teacher for Madoka, Sayaka... and even me."  
Homura's voice betrayed some lingering respect for her _sempai_.  
"However, like most girls chosen by Kyubey, Mami's got a fragile psyche. Her parents died in a car accident she survived only because Kyubey was there offering her a wish. She regrets not having thought about saving them too, and apart from other magical girls, most of whom haven't contracted yet, she has no friends."  
"Maybe we should try to bring her to our side." Fate proposed, "She looks like a good ally."  
"It isn't going to work."  
Homura sighed.  
"When she was confronted with the truth after witnessing Sayaka becoming a Witch in the third timeline, she lost it. She killed Kyoko, and I would have been next if Madoka didn't stop her. Besides, she already witnessed me killing one of Kyubey's bodies. She isn't going to trust me."  
Nanoha lowered her head thoughtfully.  
"I see... Wait, is the Sayaka you talked about Sayaka Miki, Madoka's friend?"  
"Yes. She isn't a Puella Magi yet, but it would be preferable if we manage to prevent her from contracting too. Due to some personal issues, she always ends up becoming a Witch in less than a month otherwise. Our best bet is to make sure Madoka and Sayaka don't run into Kyubey or a Witch, as they can't contract if they remain unaware of the whole system. Afterwards, we just need to find a way to deal with Walpurgisnacht, which necessarily involves finding a way to deal massive damage. Last time I resorted to heavy military hardware, including a couple of anti-ship missiles, with no success."  
Fate stared wide eyed at Nanoha's cousin. _Anti-ship missiles?  
_"Let me think... Surely with me and Fate-chan you can count on more firepower. Unfortunately, both Hayate-chan and her Knights are out on an important mission at the other end of the Milky Way, so we can't count on them. And the Asura's Arc-En-Ciel is out of question, it would wipe out the entire city."  
Fate turned her stare to Nanoha. _She was considering the use of the Arc-En-Ciel?  
_"I see. I was already thinking about increasing the size of my arsenal, too. Although I might need to travel further away from Uminari to get all what I need."  
"I can carry you, Homura-chan!" Nanoha enthusiastically offered, "I can fly very fast, and if the place is really far we can ask Admiral Lindy to teleport us there!"  
"Thank you."  
"Wait..." Fate interrupted them, "Isn't the use of mass-based weapons banned by the TSAB? And if _anti-ship missiles_ failed, what are you thinking of using?"  
The answer was two perfectly synchronized slasher smiles. After hearing the plan, Fate _freaked.  
_In the following days, military equipment of all kinds started disappearing mysteriously all over the world. An entire crate of cartridges went missing from the Asura's cargo bay too.

When Kyubey entered the mall that day, he thought he had hit the jackpot. Madoka Kaname and Sayaka Miki were both inside, and the crazed purple Puella Magi wasn't anywhere to be seen.  
The nature of Homura Akemi puzzled him. Her contract looked like one of his, as the shape of the casing on her Soul gem matched, not to mention that he was the only Incubator active in Japan... but he had never met her before. In fact, the first time Kyubey saw her, while on the way for Madoka's house, Homura greeted him with an entire clip's worth of bullets from her Beretta M9.  
Not that he minded much. As long as there was mana in the surrounding area, he could make as many new bodies as he wished. Besides, there were several wishes that could have caused him to forget or otherwise not know about the contract. Maybe she just wished to be forgotten by everybody for some reasons. What actually puzzled him the most, though, is that even when he discovered her full name he couldn't read her. Homura's powers and wish were still a mystery to him.

However, the Incubator had more pressing issues on hand. Madoka Kaname had an impressive karma load on her shoulders. In fact, her transformation in a Witch would be more than enough to fulfill the Earth's quota. On the other hand, Sayaka Miki had a fairly low potential, but her psyche looked weak enough to guarantee a quick transformation, which in turn would make her friend despair faster.  
Kyubey started formulating a plan. A Witch, Gertrud, was currently inhabiting the floor of the mall, currently closed for renovations, he was walking in, and Mami Tomoe was going there to battle her.  
All the Incubator had to do was luring the two girls there, and Mami would do the rest for him.

He didn't expect to see two magical girls blocking his way. They were already transformed, a brunette wearing a long white dress with blue accents and a blonde wearing a short black dress with a white cape. Their weapons were respectively a staff and an axe, each with a jewel embedded in it.  
They were clearly not two of his own. He never let his Puella Magi put their Soul Gems on their weapons, as it meant that a lone Puella Magi losing her weapon or getting it destroyed would die without becoming a Witch. Or worse, giving other Puella Magi a clue about the true form of the contract. They never reacted well to that.  
"Incubator," started the white one. Kyubey did not show any hint of emotions, but he realized that that wasn't a good sign. Usually, when Puella Magi knew the true name of his species it also meant that they knew how the contract truly worked.  
"I am First Lieutenant Nanoha Takamachi from the Time-Space Administration Bureau, and my partner here is Enforcer Fate Testarossa-Harlaown. You are accused with indiscriminate use of a dangerous magic system on an unadministered world and deception of underaged girls. We will bring you aboard one of our vessels for questioning. If you don't resist, you will be allowed to plead in your defense."  
Kyubey remained calm at his spot, wiggling his tail nonchalantly. However, his thoughts were frenetic.  
_The TSAB? Their presence here is strange, since the planet isn't under direct administration. We might have to leave this planet sooner than expected, their interference might slow down the energy collection to uncomfortable levels.  
_The Incubator didn't show any of it to the two mages.  
"_I have no intention to pose myself as a threat, Bureau mages."  
_Both girls exchanged a quick glance, silently asking "He knows?"  
"_However, I am afraid that I can't follow you right now. I have important business to pursue, and the health of the universe depends on it."  
_Kyubey turned around and started walking away, only to find Homura standing in front of him.  
"That was an order, Incubator."  
"_Homura Akemi? Your presence here alongside two Bureau mages surprises me."  
_"Don't play games with me. We know what you are. What you are doing to all those girls. What you did to me. What you want to do to Sayaka Miki and Madoka Kaname right now."  
"_You already know why we are doing this, right? The energy we are gathering from you Puella Magi is staving off the heat death of the universe. Many civilizations will see the light of the day thanks to your sacrifice."  
_Homura pulled out her Beretta M9 from the shield, and aimed it at Kyubey.  
"Don't talk like you care about any species outside of yours. If Madoka Kaname contracts with you, she will be doomed to give birth to the Witch that will destroy this planet. And you will do the same to every suitable new civilization. We won't allow that."  
Nanoha and Fate stared in shock. Homura didn't tell them that. They hoped that it was a bluff, as it would have been an even bigger problem than Walpurgisnacht, and the Stage-Constructing Witch was already a big problem on her own.  
"_I see that you have recognized Madoka Kaname's exceptional potential too. I am truly impressed, Homura Akemi. This explains why you appear every time I try to make contact with her. However, I can't give in to your requests. The amount of energy that can be harvested from her transformation in a Witch would stave off entropy for at least a couple millennia."  
Bang._ Kyubey fell to ground with a bullet hole right between his eyes.  
"As I told you, we aren't going to allow that."  
Another Incubator calmly walked out of the shadows and started eating the corpse.  
"_You should have already realized that killing me is only a waste of time and resources. I have many replacements, you know._"  
Homura kept her gun aimed on him.  
"A waste for _you_, perhaps. As long as I keep you away from your victims, it isn't wasted time."  
Homura glanced at the two mages. The meaning was clear.  
Nanoha opened an holographic window to enter communication with the Asura. Admiral Lindy Harlaown appeared on it.  
"The suspect is resisting arrest and is going to resume his criminal activities. Requesting authorization to open fire."  
"Authorization granted. And, Nanoha?"  
"Yes, ma'am?"  
Lindy sighed.  
"Try to watch collateral damage this time. They are still rebuilding that hotel in Cranagan."  
"I already said I'm sorry!"  
Nanoha closed the communication, and shifted in a fighting position. Fate did the same.  
[Axel Shooter.]  
[Plasma Lancer.]  
Kyubey realized that it was a good moment to start running.

Kyubey dodged another Axel Shooter. A direct hit from one of those was enough to disintegrate half of his body, and it already happened three times.  
He didn't have the time for a sigh of relief, though, as he was promptly impaled by a barrage of Plasma Lancer bolts.  
His next reincarnation tried to sneak away from the battlefield, only to be swiss-cheesed by Homura's Type 89 assault rifle. The following one had barely the time to open his eyes before being decapitated by a swing from Bardiche's Haken form.  
It _wasn't_ going as the Incubator wanted. His plan was to let the three magical girls hurt him, and then get Madoka's sympathy by showing up wounded and begging for help, but the three girls went out of their way to make sure that every hit was lethal.  
And here he was being killed again. This time, his head popped after being hit by a thin purple beam cast by Homura.  
When he was finally able to leave the area, he marked the "let your current body get hurt to gain sympathy" plan as no longer applicable.

"We lost him, and there's a Witch nearby. I can't figure out where, though."  
Homura frowned while looking at her Soul Gem. She had forgotten again about the Rose Garden Witch, and as a result the Incubator was surely trying to drag Madoka and Sayaka there.  
Not to mention that her Soul Gem was blinking like crazy, and despite her experience she couldn't make heads or tails about it.  
[Wide Area Search, Master?]  
Nanoha nodded at her Device's suggestion.  
"Yes. Search for Witches, Familiars, Incubators and humans on this floor."  
[All right, Master.]  
Several pink orbs, similar to miniature Axel Shooters, formed around Raising Heart's "head" and then shot in every direction, scanning the floor. It took less than thirty seconds for the Device to complete the scan.  
[Wide Area Search completed. There is a Queen-level barrier fifty-three meters north-west of our position, and six Minion-level barriers about sixty meters south of our position. An Incubator is present at the latter.]  
Queen and Minion were the TSAB terms for Witch and Familiar, respectively. Homura wasn't surprised that her Soul Gem's "sonar" function had gone nuts. A group of Familiars had just separated from a Witch, and so it was receiving several signatures at once.  
[There are also two human non-combatants eighty-two meters south of our position.]  
The three Magical Girls exchanged a worried look. There was no doubt about the identity of the two "non-combatants".

Sayaka opened the door of the third floor of the mall, ignoring the "do not enter" sign.  
_Help me!  
_Again that voice. The blue-haired girl and her best friend had followed it without hesitation. If someone needed help, they couldn't let him down, could they?  
"Yeah, we're coming. Where are you?"  
Sayaka stepped forward, with Madoka in tow. The pink-haired girl was looking around warily, scared by the odd nature of the voice. She was glad that her brave friend was with her.  
Besides, Sayaka had picked up a fire extinguisher. Good both for clubbing and disorienting.  
If it was a trap laid down by a thief or some other criminal, he was in for a bad surprise.

Homura and Fate ran towards the centre of the Witch's barrier, avoiding confrontation with her Familiars as much as possible.  
The three girls agreed that Nanoha was the most suited to deal with the diplomacy in case Madoka and Sayaka got caught in one of the Familiars' Barriers or Mami showed up, so the blonde mage and the black-haired Puella Magi were tasked with taking down the Witch, or at least keep it occupied while Nanoha dealt with the stray Familiars.  
When they reached the centre of the Barrier, Fate was taken aback by Gertrud's appearance: the Witch looked like a butterfly-winged snail with a rose-covered blob of moss for the head. It was difficult to believe that such an abomination had once been a girl just like her.  
Fate whispered "I'm sorry" before sending a barrage of Plasma Lancers towards the Witch, who dodged it with agility that seemed impossible for her enormous body and relatively small wings, flinging the couch she was sitting upon at the two girls.  
Fate and Homura jumped out of the way and returned fire, bullets and energy bolts trailing the Witch in her acrobatics but failing to score an appreciable number of hits. The two girls couldn't aim any better, as they had to move continuously since several miniature-sized Familiars tried to swarm them.  
"She's very agile," Homura commented, "We have to change tactics."  
"I have an idea. Cover me!"  
While Homura kept the Witch occupied with sustained fire from her FN Minimi, Fate used her Sonic Move to get past Gertrud and fly upwards. The blonde mage took advantage of her new position to send a Haken Saber towards the Witch, the homing energy blade following the target relentlessly until it managed to hit Gertrud and send her towards the ground.  
The Witch howled in anger, and arranged her tiny Familiars into neat lines. Somehow, they fused together into thin vines that started whipping at the two girls. Fate flew as high as she could to avoid being hit by them, cutting down the ones who came too close with Bardiche in Haken Form.  
Homura was in deeper trouble. Lacking proper flight ability or a bladed weapon, she had to jump around and dodge. When a vine managed to trip her, the black-haired girl decided that she had enough.  
Homura turned her shield, activating her time stop power. Gertrud, her vines and Fate froze in place, while everything turned to grayscale. The Puella Magi ran towards the Witch, jumping from vine to vine to get in a suitable position, and threw several M26 grenades towards her enemy.

"Sayaka-chan, I found a wounded... er, I think it's some sort of animal!"  
Madoka sat on the ground and cradled the injured animal in her arms. The body vaguely reminded that of a white cat, but the creature had another, very long set of ears coming out of the smaller ones and red, beady eyes.  
"_Thank... you._"  
Sayaka kneeled next to her friend.  
"It _talked?_"  
"I... I think that he was the one calling us!"  
The two girls didn't have time to inquire further about the creature, since the floor around them suddenly shifted to a twisted landscape that looked like an abstract painting. Weird creatures, that oddly looked like stick figures with eyeless Pringles-man faces and butterflies for feet, appeared and started walking towards them.  
"Sayaka-chan, what are those things?"  
"I... I don't know!"  
The two girls, back to back, started looking for an escape route, but the creatures had surrounded them. Sayaka started spraying them with the fire extinguisher, but it wasn't very effective and soon the tank was empty.

Nanoha raced towards the Familiars' Barriers. By the time she got there, the six barriers had fused into a bigger one, meaning that they were going after something.  
The mage prepared several Axel Shooter projectiles before even entering the Barrier.  
_If something happens to Madoka, Homura-chan isn't going to forgive me._

When Madoka and Sayaka started thinking that they were doomed, several orbs of pink energy started mowing down their assailants, the heads disappearing while the butterflies flew away.  
"Are you OK?"  
The two girls looked at their savior, and recognized her.  
"Nanoha...chan? Are you a... magical girl?"  
Nanoha landed near them and rubbed the back of her head, mildly embarrassed by Madoka's question.  
"Well, that's not the exact term... but yes, I guess I am."  
"Cool!" Sayaka was overly enthusiastic at the prospect of personally knowing a Magical Girl. They fight for JUSTICE!  
"It's not as easy as it sounds, though. It's dangerous. Stay here while I deal with the monsters, OK?"  
The two girls nodded, and Nanoha took off again.  
[Protection Powered]  
A pink, transparent half-sphere rose around Madoka and Sayaka while the mage started to shoot at the following wave of Familiars. Each of the six original barriers apparently concealed several of the creatures, and Nanoha quickly lost count of the ones she had already killed.  
Unfortunately, her fighting style was more suited for aerial one-versus-one engagements and long-range bombardment, and without the help of the Cartridge System she had trouble putting out enough Axel Shooters to keep the Familiars at bay, as Protection Powered required a good portion of her mana output in order to mantain solidity.  
"_Fate-chan? When you are done with the Witch, could you please come here? I need a little help!"  
_"_Kinda busy here... Are those whips or tentacles? Oh, no, no, they are TENTACLE-WHIPS!"  
_Nanoha sighed. Her two allies had their hands full. The mage prepared another set of Axel Shooters... and then stared as all the remaining Familiars were simultaneously headshotted by golden bullets.

As the Barrier faded, Nanoha landed again and turned towards the source of the gunfire. It was a blonde girl, dressed with what looked like a yellow and brown Renaissance-themed Magical Girl outfit and holding a silvery musket.  
"Are you alright?"  
"Yes. Thank you very much for the help."  
Madoka and Sayaka just nodded, unable to talk due to the sheer awe.

The Witch was stopped in her tracks by several nearly-simultaneous explosions, losing control of her vines. Fate took advantage of the situation and Haken Slash-ed her several times, targeting mainly the "head" and the butterfly wings.  
Left without her main method of movement, the Witch howled in frustration and tried to hop away, but she was now an easy target. Homura pinned her down with more machinegun fire, and Fate outstretched her left arm, the palm of the hand facing the Witch. A magic circle grew out of it.  
"Plasma Smasher!"  
A beam of yellow energy shot from the circle, and Gertrud was no more. After the Barrier collapsed, the blonde mage opened a communication link to Nanoha, using Bardiche's speaker system to allow Homura to listen in too.  
"We killed the Witch. How it is the situation there?_"  
_"_The battle here is over too, but it didn't work out as well as we intended._"  
Homura suppressed the urge to grab Bardiche like it was a phone.  
"What happened? Is Madoka safe?"  
"_Yes, but both her and Sayaka witnessed everything. And then Mami appeared too. She helped me finishing off the Familiars, but now there's no way I can stop them from talking with Kyubey._"  
"Damn!"  
Homura punched a wall, leaving a web of cracks thanks to the superhuman strength granted by her Puella Magi status.  
"What about introducing the Bureau to them too?" Fate proposed, "I don't know if they have a Linker Core or not, but maybe we can win them over."  
"Unlikely." Homura flatly stated, "Kyubey can't tell outright lies, but he is good at manipulating the truth in a way that would make them believe whatever he wants to. Even that the Bureau is an enemy and the Incubators are not. Remember, he's been running this system for who knows how long."  
"_I see. I will pose as another Puella Magi then. Mami invited Madoka, Sayaka and me at her place, so I'll try to smooth things out there. I'll catch up with you later._"  
"Be careful, Nanoha." Fate advised before closing the communication. The blonde mage sighed, and turned towards Homura.  
"May I ask you something? Nothing important, just a thing that I find odd."  
The Puella Magi gave her a slightly puzzled look.  
"Sure. What is it?"  
"Why do most of the witches we fight have tentacles?"  
"A Puella's fears have a role in forming her Witch's appearance. I assume they are a result of the Puella knowing about the... _creative_ use of tentacles in certain works of fiction."  
Homura somehow managed to give her explanation in her usual monotone voice. Fate stared at her eyes wide open.  
"I don't want to know what happens to a Puella defeated by those Witches. That's... _scary._"  
"Indeed it is."  
Homura's voice was still a monotone, but her face clearly shown that she feared such a possibility too. How could people get aroused by _that_?

Chapter Three Omakes

1) The Fire-Extinguisher-Wielding Ally Of JUSTICE!

The so-called Uminari Killer was waiting his preys. He had found a nice spot to kill his next target, a closed floor of a shopping mall, and he even managed to lure not one, but two girls there!

Nobody knew why he targeted young girls. Hell, he didn't knew that himself, being the story's designated Generic Serial Killer and all that. But that was his role, and he complied without complaint. So, he crept behind the two girls, his knife ready to strike and a cheesy one-liner ready to annoy readers.  
"You are two brave little girls. Too bad for you."  
He did expect a reaction from the blue-haired girl. That's why he was going to get her first.  
Leave the scared ones last, so they'll be completely terrified and helpless when they die. That was one of the few rules his job had.  
He didn't expect the blue-haired girl to have a _fire extinguisher_.

Sayaka sprayed the black-clothed figure with the entire content of her improvised weapon. Her assailant backed off, coughing and covered with fire-retardant powder.  
Then Sayaka swung the fire extinguisher, hitting him in the belly. And then another swing connected to some... fragile parts.  
_That must hurt_, Madoka thought as the black figure was doubled over, with both hands covering his crotch. Sayaka hit him again, this time right on the face.  
Before losing consciousness, he decided that from that moment onwards he would apply for the Generic Shopkeeper roles instead.

Sayaka spun her "weapon" and struck a pose.  
"That's it! The Fire-Extinguisher-Wielding Ally of Justice, Shining Sayaka, defeated evil again!"

Two figures had observed the whole scene in the shadows.  
"If you go there now, you will probably die. Again."  
"_I hate when you are right, Homura Akemi_."

2) The Reason Why Hayate Will Not Be Featured In This Fic Anywhere Soon

Amy was doing her routine check on the Asura's surveillance cameras. Nothing unusual to report, and it wasn't unusual. All the people working the Asura were honest and professional people, after all. And the five girls that were going to Mid-Childa for mage training were well-behaved too.  
Well, with the exception of the red-haired one, that is. Keeping her out of the kitchen was a pain.  
Then, Amy noticed a certain Knight Mage sneaking around with a scary grin on her face, and sighed.  
"Hayate's at it again..."

"I feel like something started to grow here!"  
Nanoha sighed.  
"Geez, Hayate-chan, you should really stop doing that."  
"Oh, come on, what's a little grope between friends?"  
Hayate took advantage of Sayaka passing nearby to tackle the Ally of Justice.  
"See? She doesn't mind it! And our Knight of Justice's ones have a nice feeling too!"  
With a grin, Sayaka freed herself and tackled Hayate back.  
"Oh, but mine aren't as good as yours!"  
"Hahaha! I got groped!"  
Nanoha shivered.  
"We're all _doomed._"

Kyoko was so shocked when someone started fondling her breasts that she let her bag of apples (totally _not_ stolen from the Asura' kitchen) fall.  
"With all the food you eat, I thought that there should have been a bit more fat here."  
Kyoko tried to keep her anger in check. After all, that idiot head was going to be her superior...  
"Do you want to _die_, sweetie?"

"KYAAAAAAAA!"  
Hayate stared at the end of the corridor where Fate had disappeared after Sonic Move-ing out of her grasp.  
"She didn't even let me tell her that they had grown bigger."

"Those are Madoka Kaname's exclusive property."  
Hayate stared at the Beretta M9 that Homura somehow managed to aim at her forehead.  
"... Will she share with her future superior?"  
"No."

Madoka had the impression that somebody was following her. She turned around for the third time, but wasn't able to see anyone.  
"Homura-chan, I know you want to protect me and stuff, but nobody's after me now so would you... Eep!"  
Somebody tackled her from behind.  
"They aren't very big right now, but I think they're going to grow well!"  
"Eh? Hayate-chan?"  
"Don't be so surprised, it's just a little grope between friends, and..."  
Hayate felt something oddly similar to the end of a gun barrel pressed between her shoulders.  
"... I'll be good."  
Hayate mentally noted to reprimand whoever was in charge with the requisition of Homura's guns. It wasn't possible that she still had some with her after_ four_ full searches of her shield, was it?

Mami was admiring a galaxy out of one of the Asura's windows when she felt a gentle squeeze over her assets.  
"As I thought, Mami's are the best!"  
Mami instantly recognized the voice of her cosplay-maniac soon-to-be superior.  
"Oh, my, that's embarrassing..."

Amy closed the video feed and facepalmed.  
"Someone please stop her."  
"Oh, you're all so serious..."  
Amy turned around in terror. And then started running.  
"Who let HER on the bridge?!"  
Chrono grinned, enjoying the chase scene.  
"That's for keeping all the orange juice for yourself."  
"It was FIVE YEARS AGO! And you say that EVERY SINGLE TIME!"

**The second omake was supposed to be much shorter, and then got out of hand. But the truly bad thing is that Hayate's taste for "hands-on measurements" is** _**canon.**_


	4. Chapter 4 Broken Hero

**Merry Christmas to all! Here's a new chapter as a Christmas gift. Unfortunately I fell behind schedule while writing, so I wasn't able to write omakes for this chapter.**

**Reviews and criticism are always welcome.**

Chapter Four - Broken Hero

"I guess there are some explanations to be done." Mami said while pouring tea for her guests.  
The blonde girl's flat, despite the owner's apologies about it not being ready for guests, was clean and tidy, and despite being rather small it gave an illusion of spaciousness thanks to the use of little furnishing.  
"Sure, what do you want to know?" Sayaka asked before sipping from her cup.  
"I think we're the ones who are supposed to explain." Nanoha answered.  
The blue-haired girl rubbed the back of her head.  
"Ahahaha, sorry!"  
Mami smiled, and explained to the girls what were the Puella Magi's duties and how the contract worked... or, rather, what Kyubey had told her.  
Nanoha, in the meantime, was worried. Mami had immediately shown her Soul Gem to the two other girls, and so it would have been suspicious if the mage didn't show her own.  
_Or maybe not,_ Nanoha hoped, _After all, Mami's doing the explanation, not me._  
"Nanoha, do you have a Soul Gem too, right?"  
Madoka's innocent question made chills run down Nanoha's spine. Busted. If the mage had more time she would have been able to come up with something - an hologram, perhaps?  
"Well... uhm, mine's a bit different..."  
Repressing a sigh, the mage pulled out Raising Heart. While the Device didn't have a casing around its core, Nanoha hoped that the translucent marble had a passing enough resemblance to a Soul Gem's internal... well, gem.  
"Strange. I've never seen a Soul Gem like that before." Mami commented. The blonde girl observed Raising Heart closely, trying to find more similarities with her own Soul Gem.  
"_I have an explanation for that._"  
The four girls turned towards Kyubey. Until then, the Incubator was doing his best impression of a cat-like mascot by eating cat food from a bowl. He never complained about it - in fact, it was a perfectly balanced and highly energetic food. Very efficient.  
"_I'm not the only one of my kind, as it would be impossible for me to cover the entirety of this planet. Nanoha Takamachi didn't contract with me, and it is only logical that her Soul Gem would have a different shape from those of the girls who did."_  
Nanoha was surprised. Why was Kyubey helping her?  
"I see. This explains why I never saw you here in Uminari. Are you a transfer student?" Mami asked.  
"Actually, I'm not." Nanoha answered. "I spend a lot of time out of Japan, and I contracted during one of these trips. I don't hunt Witches in Uminari very often."  
Madoka started looking down thoughtfully. She was usually kinda slow, but at the mention of "transfer student" she couldn't do anything but think about Homura.  
A strange girl she never saw before gives her ominous warnings, and only a few hours later she gets involved in a war between Magical Girls and Witches. Was there any correlation?  
Homura was also the cousin of one of those Magical Girls. But why did she try to keep her away from that world? And why Homura said that to her, of all the people in her class?  
"Well, this explains why you did so well against those Familiars," Mami complimented Nanoha, "focusing your magic on attacking and holding a barrier simultaneously requires experience."  
The blonde Puella Magi smiled. Nanoha realized why, despite her shortcoming, Homura still respected her.  
Mami not only was a skilled fighter, but had been very reassuring towards Madoka and Sayaka. Not to mention that, despite being a very refined girl, she had a friendly attitude towards them.  
The fact that her cakes rivaled those of the Midori-ya helped too.

"I'm sorry, they just kept chatting and chatting, and it would have been rude to leave early..."  
Nanoha sat on a bench the park with Homura and Fate. In front of them, there was a little fountain with light plays. Or rather, used to, as Fate had set up a Temporal Force Field to ensure that no alien furballs from Hell could listen in, and so there were no light plays and the rest of the area was off-color.  
"Don't worry, it's fine." Homura sighed, "I guess I have to explain something about the little talk I had with Kyubey, right?"  
Nanoha nodded, with concern on her face. The thought of a single monster capable of annihilating an entire planet was horrible at least, not to mention that it was supposed to be born from the soul of one of her kindest classmates.  
"Yes. Is Madoka's Witch so powerful as you say?  
Homura sighed again.  
"Unfortunately, yes. In every timeline I went through, her power increased. By the fourth one, she was powerful enough to destroy Earth in ten days. This is my sixth one."  
Both Mages stared in shock at Nanoha's cousin. If Madoka's witch manifested in their timeline they would probably be killed so quickly that they wouldn't even realize it. Alongside the rest of Earth's population.  
"But..." Nanoha said, "Why didn't you tell that before?"  
"I didn't want you to worry about that. If we manage to stop Madoka from making a contract, her Witch isn't going to be a problem. Besides..."  
Homura started looking down.  
"The immense potential Madoka has is actually my own fault. According to what Kyubey told me when he found out about my powers in my previous attempt, a Puella Magi's potential is tied to the amount of misfortune she is destined to carry in life. By rewinding time, by making Madoka go through all of this over and over again, I made her misfortune bigger and bigger. I turned her into Kyubey's juiciest prey ever."  
"This is going to be a problem," Fate said, "I've been with the TSAB only for five years, but it was enough to understand how the big brass think. If they discover that, they might make... _unpleasant _choices to minimize damage."  
"I'm sure Admiral Lindy will find a solution to that," Nanoha reassured them, "oh, I almost forgot: Mami invited Sayaka and Madoka to a Witch hunt."  
Homura didn't look surprised at all.  
"She always does that, when she meets potential Magical Girls. Her desire to be not alone makes her the perfect pawn to drag girls into Kyubey's machinations."  
Nanoha repressed a sigh. Homura had changed a lot - her battle had turned Nanoha's cute, innocent and shy cousin into an almost emotionless soldier with a bleak vision of the world.  
"I... see. In fact, she invited me too."  
"And?"  
Homura raised her eyes, looking straight into Nanoha's. A cold but suffering stare the mage wanted to make sure the cat-rabbit alien would pay for. However, that wasn't the right moment to think about that.  
"I decided to go with them, so I can keep an eye on Madoka and Sayaka. I even gave them my phone number, in case they run into a Witch while I am not with them."  
"Good idea," Homura agreed, "Mami tends to overdo her fights in order to impress her juniors, so keep an eye on dangers she may not notice."  
Nanoha nodded.  
"I'll keep that in mind. And you two? What will you do in the meanwhile?"  
"I guess we can keep chasing Witches on our own," Fate proposed, "We can't let them harm innocent people, the girls they used to be wouldn't have liked that."  
"At all." Homura stated. However, her voice wasn't as steady as she wanted, and she had to resort to all of her strength to avoid hiccuping as her mind was invaded by memories of the most painful favour Madoka asked to Homura in one of her previous loops.  
_Homura-chan, I... I don't want to become a Witch..._

Nanoha and Homura landed in the garden of their house. They were quite late, so they had decided to go home by flying (or, in Homura's case, jumping between rooftops).  
Homura couldn't help but do her signature hair flick right after her feet touched the ground. Not that she did that for vanity or something: after more than three months she _still_ wasn't used to have her hair loose. Yes, keeping a cool image is difficult even for the Magical Girl equivalent of John Rambo.  
"Homura-chan? I think it's better to avoid Mom discovering about your powers, we should undo our transformations now," Nanoha advised. If Momoko discovered Homura's troubled past, things would quickly become even more complicated.  
"That won't be necessary."  
The two girls shivered upon hearing Momoko's angry voice. Nanoha's mother was on the door, staring at her daughter and niece in a way that made even the White Devil shiver in fear.  
"Have you the faintest idea of how late it is? And, besides, who had the great idea of enlisting Homura in the TSAB without asking me first? She's still recovering from her operation, she can't go around fighting monsters yet! Nanoha, with what you went through I thought you would have realized that!"  
The two girls exchanged a glance and sighed. It was explanations time again.

Momoko's anger didn't last long. In fact, half of the time Homura spent narrating her struggles was between her aunt's arms. While the excessively strong hug was Momoko's idea, Homura didn't dislike it - the Puella Magi strongly needed it, even if she wasn't going to admit that herself.  
"Now I understand why you were so strange in the last days. I thought it was a side-effect of all those medications you have to take for your heart condition."  
"I don't need them anymore, actually. I recovered from my operation long ago, and my magic can fix almost everything. That's the reason why I don't need glasses anymore, too."  
Momoko glanced at her niece in concern.  
"You should have told us that right away," Momoko sighed, "but I guess that you had other things on your mind, right?"  
Homura nodded.  
"Alright then. I'm not going to stop you, but take care. Akemi wouldn't like to see you getting injured."  
The Puella Magi lowered her eyes after hearing her mother's name. While on the previous loops her mind was completely occupied by her quest, to the point that she barely remembered that she once had a family, now Homura was beginning to miss her.  
"Don't cry, Homura," Momoko said while wiping a tear from her niece's cheek. Homura didn't even notice that she had started crying.  
"I'm sure that Akemi is proud of you right now. You're very strong, Homura. Few girls would have done what you did. Even a lot of adults don't have your courage."  
Homura turned her head towards Nanoha, who nodded enthusiastically. And then suddenly froze.  
"I... I'll go make some tea!"  
The Puella Magi stared awkwardly as her cousin ran into the kitchen.  
"Oh, my..." Momoko laughed, "Lindy must be drinking her green tea the wrong way again... "  
"Aunt Momoko, does Nanoha have a..." Homura couldn't believe to what she was going to say, "_tea sense?_"  
"Uhm, not exactly. See, Admiral Lindy Harlaown, Fate's adoptive mother, has picked up the habit of drinking tea in her _peculiar_ way. She drinks green tea with milk and a lot of sugar. I heard that Nanoha nearly fainted the first time she saw that."  
Homura blinked. Milk and sugar in _green_ tea? Mami would have shot her on sight for such an heresy.  
This didn't explain how Nanoha was capable of sensing that, though.

The following day, Madoka was having a regular morning. Get up, watch a mysterious magical creature bathe in a basin in her bathroom, brush her teeth while talking with her mother about wishes and what to do with them, eat the excellent breakfast cooked by her father, run towards school while eating a toast as it is really late, talk to her best friend telepathically, stare awkwardly as Hitomi freaks out at their ability to communicate without words and screams something incoherent about forbidden love...  
Ok, this wasn't a regular morning. When Homura walked over to Madoka's desk during the first break, the pink-haired girl thought that whatever the transfer student was going to say, she could believe it.  
Even if it was something absurd like "I came from the future".

"Madoka, may I speak to you for a moment?"  
After the discussion with Nanoha of the previous day, Homura had decided to try and be less cold. While the possibility to put up with Mami was lost, there was no reason to be off-putting towards Madoka and Sayaka.  
In fact, not having chased Kyubey in front of them already helped, as both girls's glance expressed mainly curiosity, with just a hint of Madoka's uneasiness and Sayaka's distrust.  
"Er... Yes. What is it, Homura-chan?"  
_You already call me Homura-chan,_ Homura thought, _You barely know me, and yet you already treat me as a friend. You're too good, Madoka._  
"I want to apologize for yesterday. I was really rude to you."  
"Uhm... Don't worry, I... I am not sure why you did that, but I think I got what you meant."  
"Good."  
Homura glanced around. The class was almost empty, and the few other students were already focused on other stuff.  
"The world of magical girls isn't what it looks like in anime. Your life is on the line every day. So, please, don't contract. I don't want you to witness this nightmare."  
"But..." Madoka began, "why us? And how did you know that we would have met Kyubey?"  
Homura repressed a sigh. She had to balance well the amount of informations she said - too little, and the two girls would let themselves be tricked by Kyubey. Too much, and the Incubator would figure her out and find a counter-strategy.  
Besides, Kyubey was there too. Granted, he was apparently sleeping on Madoka's school bag, but that didn't mean that he wasn't listening in somehow.  
"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that yet. Be careful, both of you."  
Homura turned around, and started walking away.  
"Homura-chan, did we... did we already met? Are you a magical girl too?"  
The black-haired girl glanced back, forcing herself to smile. The ominous mysterious girl approach had already failed twice, after all.  
"Maybe."  
Sayaka blinked a couple of times, and then crossed her arms.  
"Is she trying to be a Mysterious Transfer Student or something?"  
Madoka glanced at her best friend with disappointment.  
"Sayaka, you spent the whole night reading TvTropes again, didn't you?"

"So, are you ready for your first Witch hunt?"  
Mami, Nanoha, Madoka and Sayaka were sitting in a cafè, planning that afternoon's hunting. The elder girl was already on her "senior magical girl" mode, and Nanoha had to admit that her smile and attitude had some sort of charm. No wonder she ended up making Madoka, Sayaka and even Homura into magical girls.  
"I bought this!" Sayaka proudly announced while unwrapping a wooden baseball bat. Nanoha instinctively ducked while the blue-haired girl gave it an experimental swing, earning her several stares from the other customers of the cafè.  
"I'm glad that you decided to come prepared," Mami commented with another of her smiles.  
"Still, I hope that you aren't going to need it," Nanoha interrupted her, "A baseball bat isn't going to do very much against a Familiar, let alone a Witch."  
"I thought it was better than nothing. Did you bring anything, Madoka?"  
"Well, I..."  
The pink-haired girl fished out a notepad from her school bag, and opened it in the middle of the table. On it there were several doodles, depicting Mami in her Puella Magi outfit, Nanoha in her Barrier Jacket and several sketches for Madoka's possible Magical Girl costume.  
"I thought I should have a design ready if I contract."  
The other three girls stared intently at the notepad. And then back at Madoka. While Nanoha was doing her best to keep a straight face and Mami just raised an eyebrow, Sayaka's eyes were widened in puzzlement.  
This lasted only a couple of seconds, though, as all three of them started laughing, causing the pink-haired girl to blush.  
"Well, that sure shows your enthusiasm," Mami said after recomposing herself.  
"Oh, Madoka..." Sayaka added, "That really surprised me."  
Madoka kept looking down in embarrassment.  
"Don't worry about it," Nanoha reassured her, "In fact, when I contracted I didn't have the time to think about an outfit, and so I ended up using my elementary school uniform as a template."  
The mage rubbed the back of her head.  
"I don't know why, but that was the first thing that came to mind."

In the meanwhile, Fate and Homura were doing their best impressions of the dark magical girl stereotype by standing on a nearby roof and spying on the other four girls.  
"Madoka's really cute when she's flustered," Homura said. The military-specs binoculars she stole in her last "shopping spree" allowed her to see everything in detail, including Madoka's doodles. The black-haired girl always liked those, although she had to hide that in the last timelines.  
"Nanoha too when she laughs," Fate added.  
"Say, Fate..."  
"Yes?"  
"Did Bardiche record the scene?"  
Fate blinked at her friend's question.  
"No. And I hope you aren't going to become a cosplay-videotaping-maniac like Suzuka's cousin."  
The blonde mage shivered as bad memories re-emerged.  
They had let Hayate meet this Tomoyo girl once. They shouldn't have had.

Mami stopped in front of an abandoned warehouse, studying the pulsating glow of her Soul Gem.  
"Alright, there's a Witch here. They often hide in abandoned buildings like this."  
Madoka glanced around warily, almost hiding behind Sayaka and holding on Kyubey like he was a plush toy. They were in a part of the city pullulating with empty, ruined buildings, with very few people around.  
"This place doesn't look safe."  
"Yeah," Sayaka agreed, "It looks like one of those places where people go to commit suicide, or to do illegal stuff."  
"Because this _is_ one of those places," Mami said with a serious expression, "In fact, a lot of murders and suicides are caused by Witches. To feed on people's despair, Witches have to make them die first."  
"Then we shouldn't wait, right?" Sayaka asked  
In response, Mami held up her Soul Gem in front of the door. The barrier opened, and the four girls walked in.  
The distorted landscape still bore resemblance to an industrial warehouse, but pumpkin vines were growing everywhere, covering the rusted machinery or even growing in their shape.  
Roaming about there were several Familiars, wit appearance like deformed fusion of mice and lizards, with several body parts replaced by glass replicas. They walked upright, and were covered in tattered cloth somehow reminiscent of a fairy tale coachman's clothing.  
Nanoha and Mami transformed, and quickly shot down the first wave of Familiars. Afterwards, the blonde Puella Magi glanced around to get an idea of the size of the barrier.  
"It looks pretty big. We can't fight all of them, we should try to break through and kill the Witch."  
"Right. The Familiars will be destroyed anyway when the barrier fades," Nanoha agreed.  
Without saying another word, Mami touched Sayaka's bat, infusing it with magic. At first the bat looked like it was only inflating, before melting and re-solidifying into a bigger, silvery version with gems encrusted in it. Madoka and Sayaka gasped in amazement.  
"It's bit more effective now. Nothing exceptional, but you should be able to defend yourself," Mami explained, "Stay close."

The group advanced into the barrier rather easily: Mami was able to summon arrays of a dozen and more muskets with ease, while Nanoha, not having to keep up the Protection Power spell like the previous day, could keep making Axel Shooters at a very fast pace.  
Their combined suppression fire was more than enough to open up a path and keep the Familiars from attacking from the sides or behind. The occasional ones who slipped through had to desist after a close encounter with Sayaka's bat.  
It didn't take long before the four girls reached the center of the barrier. The Witch occupied a rather big space that strongly resembled the vine-covered ruins of a castle's grand ballroom.  
However, it was nothing compared to the Witch herself: a giant monstrosity composed of a giant pumpkin with spider-like glass legs. On the main body was etched a face with a continuously shifting pattern, not unlike those of halloween pumpkins, from which the Witch kept spitting out smoke and ashes.  
"That... _thing_ is a Witch?" Sayaka asked. Her best friend was visibly scared too.  
"Are... Are you really going to fight that?"  
Mami smiled back at them.  
"Don't worry, we aren't going to lose. Right, Nanoha?"  
"Yes!"  
Despite her cheerful response, though, Nanoha was feeling bad inside. They weren't going to battle a criminal or a magical beast. They were going to do a mercy kill.

While Nanoha was lost in her thoughts, Mami took Sayaka's bat and slammed in in the ground. The bat, now firmly stuck in the middle of the doorway, generated a magical barrier big enough to shield Madoka and Sayaka.  
The Puella Magi walked into the room, with the mage right behind. Mami curtseyed, making several muskets fall from her skirt.  
"Ready?"  
Nanoha shifted in a more aggressive stance, and started charging up a Divine Buster.  
"Ready."  
While the Witch didn't notice the two girls walking in, she surely noticed the pink beam and the golden bullets that hit her, and started emitting smoke at an increased rate in order to hide herself.  
The two Magical Girls resorted to more suppression fire, opening several ripples in the Witch's cloud.  
"This one is smart. I can't tell if we're hitting her or not," Mami said while unleashing another barrage.  
Nanoha limited herself to nodding as she concentrated on trying to find a way to get rid of the smoke. Her spell repertoire was inadequate for the second time in two days, and she didn't like that.  
"_Raising Heart, remind me to start working on new spells when we get home._"  
[_All right, Master._]  
"Look out!"  
What looked like a giant thorn of glass emerged from the cloud, aimed at the mage. Nanoha managed to dodge it thanks to her Flash Move, and started hovering in midair to try to get a better idea of the Witch's position.  
The monster had switched targets, and now Mami was jumping around, dodging most of the thorns and shooting down the ones she couldn't.  
"_Can you do anything from up there?_" Mami asked to Nanoha telepathically.  
"_I might have an idea, but I don't know if it will work."_  
"_Let's try it, then. I'll keep her distracted."_  
The blonde mage grabbed her hat and swirled it around, releasing another batch of muskets from it. This time she fired them one at the time, pirouetting between each shot and turning her carefully timed dodges into a sort of graceful dance.  
In the meantime, Nanoha had Raising Heart ready in Buster mode.  
Her plan was rather simple: a Divine Buster at the center of the smoke curtain would probably hit the Witch, or at least disrupt her enough to momentarily stop her from emitting more smoke.  
"Divine... BUSTER!"  
It worked. After the dust cleared out, the two magical girls could see again the Witch, who was still staggering for the shot, and missing a couple of her forelegs, clearly showing the source of the "thorns". The creature shook off the shakiness and started spraying a thick jet of ashes everywhere.  
Nanoha shielded herself with her Round Shield, and discovered the true danger posed by that attack: the ashes had solidified into a concrete-like substance after hitting her protection spell. A wrong move, and the two magical girls would end up buried alive.  
"We have to stop her quickly!"  
"Don't worry, I know what to do," Mami reassured her. Despite the continuous bombardment, the blonde Puella Magi was calm, and had a good reason for that: hundreds of yellow ribbons emerged from the bullet holes left by her muskets, tying down the Witch.  
The monster didn't give up and tried to cut the ribbons with her glass legs, only to get them immobilized by Nanoha's Ring Bind.  
"Time to finish her," Mami said, and leaped in the air. The Puella Magi untied the ribbon she was wearing around her neck, and whipped it in the air making a perfect spiral.  
Even Nanoha gasped when it transformed into a giant cannon.  
"Tiro... FINALE!"  
Mami fired the cannon, its powerful blast enough to rip apart the Witch with a single hit. The blonde girl landed gracefully, pirouetted for the last time and sipped from a cup of tea she somehow produced from nowhere.  
As she landed, Nanoha couldn't do anything but agree with Homura's statements of the previous evening: Mami's fighting style, while still effective at fighting Witches, was meant to impress people with its acrobatics.  
And it worked, too. Both Madoka and Sayaka were staring at her, mouths wide open in amazement.  
"I guess we did a nice work, didn't we?" Mami asked, "And I like your Divine Buster, Nanoha. It helped us a lot."  
"Thanks. Your Tiro Finale is great, too!" Nanoha reciprocated with joy. The mage always liked receiving praise for her signature long-range spell. However, there was something she wanted to ask.  
"Er, Mami... Where did that cup of tea come from?"


End file.
